Obituary

Betty Scharf

My mother Betty Scharf, who has died aged 92, was an academic with a strong interest in politics and international affairs. She was a sociology lecturer at the London School of Economics from 1944 until 1980, producing a standard textbook, The Sociological Study of Religion, in 1972, and pioneering a course on sex and gender.

She was born Betty Hinchliff in London and went to Henrietta Barnet school, Hampstead, then studied economics at the LSE. Her father was a bassoonist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and a founder member of the London Symphony Orchestra.

At the LSE, Betty was secretary of the League of Nations society and vice-president of the students' union, leading a delegation to Czechoslovakia in 1937, and also taking part in anti-fascist demonstrations. After receiving a first-class degree, she took part in research for the study 44 Juvenile Thieves by the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby.

She became a factory inspector at the outbreak of the second world war and was then recruited to the LSE staff. She met Rafael Scharf, a newly arrived Polish Jew, at the Fabian summer school in Dartington, Devon, and married him in 1944. After the war, he worked as a war crimes investigator. His letters home at that time speak of an adoring love of Betty, a love that lasted until his death in 2003.

Betty stood as a Labour councillor in the 1950s, but without success. So she lent her political energy and acumen to many campaigns: in the 1960s for comprehensive education and Freedom from Hunger, and later to the Fawcett Society, which she chaired.

She went to Stop the War demonstrations and campaigned against nuclear proliferation right up to the last months of her life. Her rare combination of rational intelligence and kind consideration for others commanded the respect and affection of all who met her.

She is survived by her sister Margery, myself, my sister Janet and brother Daniel.